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Halcyon ain’t gone. Halcyon’s just sleeping soundly in our hearts.

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    Joseph
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Last Friday after the news dropped, I hopped by AD May-yi’s office & we collectively sobbed.

With the announcement of merger plans (or rather its lack thereof: NUS upper management didn’t consult any ync stakeholders to discuss plans. Not even ync’s president knew about the merger until it was already decided), it symbolically felt like all my growth in this short but immensely intense & fulfilling one year was susceptible to crumbling apart.

The growth that ync inculcates in its students are extensive & stretch beyond the limits that a single instagram post is capable of expressing, and I would love to share in full what our academic culture has to offer, but just for starters, where else would you find an institution with the bulk of profs genuinely investing themselves into convincing students that the purpose of education lies beyond grades, some even exclaiming multiple times in a seminar to us, “GRADES DON’T MATTER!”

As I sobbed to AD May-yi about my concerns, I recall being so amazed at how strong ync profs were. AD May-yi’s 3yo daughter’s bday celebration, John’s (alias) bday celebration, was originally planned for last Friday. The news happened to drop on Friday too though, so AD May-yi cancelled on John, bcos she knew she needed to be there for the ync community. It musnt have felt good to cancel on one’s own 3yo child, but that precisely speaks to the dedication our profs here in ync have for their students, and this propels me to continuously trudge forward despite my grief because it’s the least I should do to reciprocate their efforts.

Towards the end of our convo, AD May-yi mentioned one thing to address my (in retrospect, admittedly overblown LMAO) fears of having all my growth backslide

“Even if yale-nus is gone, you’ll always have this core in you - the ync core.”

And I guess this line is the inspiration for my art piece & its title: Halcyon aint gone. Halcyon’s just sleeping soundly in our hearts.